Joy, Sorrow, and the Healthy Prayer Life
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:07.720 | This week we're joined by pastor and author Tim Keller,
00:00:10.560 | who has written several great books
00:00:12.160 | and adding to this collection
00:00:13.260 | is a new book on prayer coming out soon.
00:00:15.520 | It's titled Prayer, Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God,
00:00:19.480 | and you will want this one too.
00:00:21.200 | Tim joins us again to talk about prayer
00:00:23.000 | and I have two more questions for you.
00:00:24.320 | Here's question number five.
00:00:25.840 | Being unhappy in the presence of God.
00:00:27.860 | We talked about this on Monday,
00:00:29.020 | but I wanna pick this up again.
00:00:30.760 | In the book, you talk about lamenting to God,
00:00:33.120 | complaining to God for the way things are going on earth.
00:00:36.800 | And we know God is in control of all things.
00:00:39.200 | So when and how should we express lament in prayer
00:00:42.460 | like the Psalmist?
00:00:43.320 | In other words, how do good Calvinists complain?
00:00:46.960 | This seems very hazardous.
00:00:48.680 | - Well, my belief is that Calvinists do understand
00:00:58.260 | that though God does,
00:01:03.260 | his decree is the final reason for everything that happens,
00:01:10.520 | that there's a concurrence.
00:01:12.720 | That is that God's will and our responsible choices,
00:01:18.320 | that they fit together,
00:01:20.760 | that God predestines things through our choices.
00:01:25.400 | You don't wanna flatten things
00:01:26.960 | so that basically you don't believe that our efforts
00:01:30.720 | and our crying out and our petitions
00:01:33.340 | and our actions really don't matter.
00:01:36.400 | According to the scripture, they do.
00:01:37.560 | I mean, that's both Don Carson's book
00:01:40.080 | on divine sovereignty and human responsibility
00:01:42.160 | and J.F. Packer's classic,
00:01:44.120 | "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God"
00:01:45.320 | point out the fact that those are two things
00:01:46.960 | that they don't seem to be,
00:01:49.240 | they seem to be intention in our mind,
00:01:51.340 | but they're not in God's understanding of things.
00:01:54.220 | But we can't flatten one for the other.
00:01:56.040 | We can't say, well, you know what,
00:01:57.600 | because it's all God's will anyway,
00:01:59.520 | there's no reason to cry out.
00:02:01.480 | There's no reason, God's gonna do what he wants to do,
00:02:03.560 | so I pray.
00:02:04.600 | I mean, if you take a kind of flat Calvinism
00:02:08.440 | to say God's in control of all things,
00:02:10.360 | then all prayer would be kind of useless.
00:02:13.220 | So if prayer is not useless, why would laments be useless?
00:02:17.280 | If asking God for your daily bread isn't useless,
00:02:19.760 | why would crying out and complaining
00:02:22.400 | about what's going on be useless?
00:02:24.120 | It wouldn't be.
00:02:24.960 | So you've gotta just keep the things together, I think.
00:02:27.840 | - Yeah, that's right.
00:02:28.960 | So what does this look like for you?
00:02:30.180 | I mean, can you share with us a season in your life
00:02:32.060 | when you did complain to God in prayer?
00:02:33.760 | I mean, what did lament look like in your life?
00:02:36.720 | - Well, I think when people die,
00:02:38.720 | who it sure looks like it doesn't seem
00:02:41.360 | to help the kingdom at all.
00:02:42.680 | Whenever I've, and that goes back a long way with me.
00:02:47.720 | When we don't have all the greatest leaders,
00:02:50.720 | and I mean, the Christian church is not,
00:02:52.480 | doesn't have great leaders growing on trees.
00:02:54.680 | And when something comes along
00:02:57.880 | and takes a leader out of commission,
00:03:00.160 | either through death or something else,
00:03:02.240 | I can really struggle with that and say,
00:03:05.640 | God, it doesn't look like you know what you're doing.
00:03:08.040 | Now that's a horrible thing to say,
00:03:09.880 | but unfortunately the Psalms are filled
00:03:11.800 | with that kind of thing.
00:03:13.320 | Where you say, are you, do you really, is it really?
00:03:16.760 | So there have been places like times in my life
00:03:19.600 | in which I've wrestled and struggled and said,
00:03:23.360 | I will be done and you do know best,
00:03:26.000 | but honestly I'm struggling.
00:03:27.080 | It doesn't seem like this makes any sense to me at all.
00:03:30.400 | - Yeah, that's very helpful.
00:03:31.960 | All right, question number six.
00:03:33.760 | Your book is drenched in God-centered joy.
00:03:36.200 | I love it.
00:03:37.040 | On page 68, you write this, quote,
00:03:39.080 | "Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness
00:03:42.680 | "of God himself," end quote.
00:03:45.160 | Wow, okay, unpack this sentence.
00:03:47.720 | Prayer is our way of entering
00:03:49.560 | into the happiness of God himself.
00:03:52.720 | - Well now, this is a Desiring God podcast interview,
00:03:56.040 | isn't it?
00:03:56.880 | You do work for Desiring God, right?
00:03:58.680 | And you're asking me about this?
00:04:00.640 | - We don't have a corner on this.
00:04:01.920 | I mean, I wanna hear how you would say it.
00:04:03.600 | - Oh, well actually, when I saw the question
00:04:08.280 | which you sent me ahead of time,
00:04:09.200 | I actually looked into my own book
00:04:10.680 | and of course I bring that up in the place
00:04:14.120 | where I'm talking about Jonathan Edwards' great work,
00:04:18.840 | The End For Which God Created the World.
00:04:21.160 | Edwards' thesis there, which of course John Piper
00:04:23.720 | has been hammering at and promoting
00:04:27.280 | in his own Piperian way for decades,
00:04:30.560 | is that God is happy because he enjoys his own glory.
00:04:35.560 | I mean, part of that's Trinitarian.
00:04:38.800 | The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit
00:04:39.820 | are glorifying each other.
00:04:41.380 | But the fact is that God is infinitely happy
00:04:47.360 | because of who he is.
00:04:49.120 | He's just happy in his own glory
00:04:51.320 | and he's happy with his own glory
00:04:53.160 | when you are especially glorifying him, especially.
00:04:56.640 | Probably not when you're confessing your sins so much,
00:04:59.640 | but when you are adoring and glorifying him, yes,
00:05:02.400 | that's when you in a sense are entering into his happiness
00:05:05.760 | 'cause you're doing what he does
00:05:07.820 | and you're experiencing the same joy he has.
00:05:10.000 | So that's where I talk about that.
00:05:12.080 | - Beautiful.
00:05:12.900 | I mean, see, it's great to hear you explain this
00:05:14.720 | in your own unique way.
00:05:16.440 | And we are thrilled that your book is loaded
00:05:18.480 | with God honoring joy.
00:05:19.520 | I mean, that's exactly what brings us great joy
00:05:22.000 | here at DG to see.
00:05:24.020 | And listener, when this new book releases,
00:05:26.560 | please make sure you read and reread chapter five
00:05:28.920 | until this point makes sense.
00:05:30.660 | It's absolutely critical to understand creation
00:05:32.840 | and life and prayer and joy, everything, really.
00:05:37.000 | And the book by Jonathan Edwards mentioned earlier
00:05:39.180 | can be found at desiringgod.org.
00:05:41.200 | You can download it right now free of charge.
00:05:42.800 | Go to the site, click on books,
00:05:44.580 | and find it by the new title that we gave it,
00:05:46.840 | "God's Passion for His Glory."
00:05:49.680 | All right, six questions down, four to go,
00:05:51.960 | two more tomorrow.
00:05:52.840 | I'm your host Tony Renke.
00:05:53.720 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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